“Am I the drama?” Pearl asks of herself during a lengthy third-act monologue that will surely go down as a legendary moment in film history. Yes, she is, and that’s exactly why we’re seated for director Ti West’s surprise prequel to X, his hit Texas grindhouse slasher from earlier this year. Starring Mia Goth, who co-wrote with West, Pearl is the origin story of the titular character, who is both the geriatric villain of X and the doe-eyed anti-heroine of her own story set 61 years prior, in 1918. Positioned at the end of WWI during the Spanish flu pandemic, it’s West’s deranged tribute to technicolor films of yesteryear, which expands upon its predecessor’s themes of fate and desire like you’ve never quite seen before. It’s more shocking than frightening, but if The Wizard of Oz in the vein of Lars von Trier piques your interest, you’re in for a treat.
While X’s mantra was “I will not accept a life I do not deserve” Pearl focuses on how and why the murderous elderly woman living in a rural farmhouse seemingly came to accept hers. Pearl spends her days at the beck and call of her strict German mother, resenting her husband for serving in the war overseas and damning her to such an existence. She begrudgingly helps around the farm and cares for her infirm father, whom she pokes and prods with morbid curiosity as if to wonder why he bothers to stick around. In secret, Pearl drapes herself in her mother’s finest clothes and dances, dreaming of a life in the spotlight far away from home – Europe, perhaps. The onset of the Spanish flu only enhances her suffocating isolation in a way we are all too familiar with today. When auditions for a traveling dance troupe come to town, she plans her macabre escape. It’s more of a grisly character study than a straight-up slasher, and it could use a little more tension throughout, but watching Goth transform Pearl from bratty Dorothy into a blood-stained Wicked Witch will leave you transfixed.
For all its stylish delights, Mia Goth is the one who carries Pearl to greatness. As mentioned, she co-wrote the film with West, and having such a direct influence on the trajectory of her character has made a profound impact. Pearl’s charming instability as a sympathetic psychopath with child-like rage bubbling below the surface is immediately evident. Although she cares greatly for her farm animals, she slaughters a goose for her pet gator without blinking and incredulously tells a scarecrow she’s married before simulating sex with it. Displaying both comedic and dramatic range that certainly warrants discussion during awards season, Goth lays it all out on screen. Comparisons have been made to Toni Collette in Hereditary, and hopefully, the powers that be take note and get over their genre bias.
And speaking of that A24 classic, the film’s other standout is Tandi Wright as Pearl’s mother, Ruth. Unafraid to go toe to toe with Goth, her performance culminates in a dinner table monologue that mimics Hereditary to the point of being an homage – with a twist. Fear of wasted youth is generational, as Ruth sobs through the night at her miserable existence, while Pearl looks at her mother in disgust, and in 1979 X’s Maxine looks at elderly Pearl with as much contempt.
These ideas are given levity by the sheer whimsy West’s eye brings to such a grim tale. While known for his slow-burn approach, nothing has changed here, but he maintains focus in Pearl’s meandering world with tight pacing and editing. We’re transported immediately into a bygone era via the film’s opening credits, and the presence of sex and gore only highlights what a unique and strange experience this is. West illustrates Pearl’s journey through bold and bright colors that frame the hope of the outside world, while he enriches the imprisoning farmhouse interior with deep and dark hues. Her appearance, likewise, shifts from an innocent farmgirl to a literal replication of Miss Gulch (aka the Wicked Witch), and returning glances at a decaying pig carcass further symbolizes her transition. This attention to detail does not go unnoticed, and while it’s the farthest West has strayed from typical horror fare, it is an experiment gone right.
Such a thoughtful and demented background story of an already striking character is a gift. To that end, we have New Zealand’s strict COVID-19 quarantining measures to thank, which allowed West to write Pearl while waiting to shoot X and then film them back to back – it’s his personal Lord of the Rings. We’ve been enlightened as to why Pearl would remain in that decrepit farmhouse all those years later – protecting society from her homicidal tendencies – and even why she hates blondes so much. And finally, in one wild act of absolutely extravagant camp, Goth destroys Timothée Chalamet’s Call Me By Your Name end credits game with an iconic moment of her own. There’s no place like home, but for Pearl, home is hell on earth.
Check out our MaXXXine review here.